But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall
find, upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined within very
narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to
no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or
diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. When
we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas,
_gold_, and _mountain_, with which we were formerly acquainted. A
virtuous horse we can conceive; because, from our own feeling, we can
conceive virtue; and this we may unite to the figure and shape of a
horse, which is an animal familiar to us. In short, all the materials of
thinking are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment: the
mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. Or,
to express myself in philosophical language, all our ideas or more
feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.

14. To prove this, the two following arguments will, I hope, be
sufficient. First, when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however
compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into
such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment.
Even those ideas, which, at first view, seem the most wide of this
origin, are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it. The
idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being,
arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and
augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom. We
may prosecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we shall
always find, that every idea which we examine is copied from a similar
impression. Those who would assert that this position is not universally
true nor without exception, have only one, and that an easy method of
refuting it; by producing that idea, which, in their opinion, is not